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Personal property registry enables direct interaction with government;new security camera recognises disguised faces; Axworthy launcheslandmine site.................................................................................Page 12

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We asked a desktop computing specialist with the federal governmentabout the direction managers should take when upgrading systems. Hisanswer may surprise you...............................................................Page 28

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Year 2000 CountdownWith the millenium less than twoyears away IT people throughoutOttawa are scrambling to avoid a

potential meltdown. James Carelesslooks at how three departments are

Phil Mclellan, assistant deputy minister for GovernmentTelecommunications and Informatics Services (GTIS)spoke recently with Government Computer about hisorganisation changing mandate....................................................Pag

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Page 16handling the problem.

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In this issue we introduce a new columnist - Thomas S. Riley. Hiscompany, Riley Information Services, specialises in the creation ofpublic policy on information issues...............................................Page 42

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Michael Asner continues his discussion on how to determinea winning RFP................................................................................Page 44

FeatureYear 2000A time for triage:When IT planning is less than perfect you can often trace the problem

back to the lack of a solid departmental business strategy.............Page 46

I%IIRSRRSEWIRMUWSSRWS IW WUWC PHUO SCIW

what to fx when you can't fix everythingThe Year 2000 crisis has escalated to the

point where the vast majority of businessesand government departments are physically

unable to fix all of the errors in theircomputer systems. The solution may

be to refocus your team's efforts.I IPage 23

4 Government Computer + January 1998

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Not 666 but 99by Lee Hunter

i ll a l l he l l br e akloose on January 1,2000? Not exactly.According to manyexperts hell will cer-

tainly break loose but it won't take twoyears for government systems to feel theheat. In fact many systems will fail in thenext twelve months and it 's possiblethat on January 1, 1999 we will witnessmore crashes than will be seen at themillennium.Event horizons

One of many common myths aboutthe Year 2000 bug is that systems needto be debugged and tested prior toDecember 31, 1999. This is what i scalled an 'event horizon', the last datethat an application wil l function cor-rectly.

But different applications can have avariety of event horizons. For example,forward looking programs, like thosethat handle five year budgets, were atrisk three years ago, some of your soft-ware may have problems at the end ofthe next fiscal year, whereas other sys-tems won't have a date-related hangovertill New Year's Day, 2000.

However there is a widespread andvery much under-reported bug specificto the year 1999 which could catchyour organisation completely off guard.

For many years programmers havebeen treating '99' in a date field in a spe-cial way.As Data Dimensions reports inits on l ine p u b l ication M i l l enniumJournal,"The digit '9', used in data singlyor as a series of nines, since the begin-ning of data processing, has held spe-cial meanings. The meanings could beend of record, end of file, error return,

cancellation, start, special discounts,missing date, or keep forever, to name a

6 Government Computer + J anuary 1998

few. In some cases, the conditional nineis included in the programming lan-guage itself to have special meaning. Infact, '9' is the most frequently used ele-ment to mean transfer of logic." Oneorganisation was even reported to beusing '99' to flag records that could bedestroyed!

Some programs have data validationrules that require a date to be entered.Often they wil l accept 1/1/99 in thedate field but will treat that entry as asignal that the user has, for some reason,chosen not to enter a valid date.

And the worst of the problem is thatorganisations that are only beginning toget a handle on the Y2K bug haven' t

even begun to consider the '99 bug',even though the event horizon will hitthem at least a year earlier.

Some Y2 K exp e r t s ha v e setSeptember of this year as the 'drop-dead' deadline for identifying and fixingthe Y2K bug. This would provide a fullyear of testing (with a l ittle breathingroom) before the millennium arrives.

If you apply the same kind of t imeline to the much more pressing '99 bug'you can see why I say that all hell isabout to break loose in the comingyear.

Is it warm in here or is it just me?+Lee Hunter is managing editor of

Government Computer and president of HumCommunications Ltd. He can be reached [email protected]. More information onthe '99 bug'is available at www data-dimen-sions,corn!html/MILJ45.htm. We also recom-mend the book Managing 00, Surviving theYear 2000 Computing Crisis by Peter de Jagerand Richard Bergeon (John Wiley and Sons,ISBN: 0-471-17937-X), available from theGovernment Computer Bookstore (613-789-6431).

To be Year 2000 Compliant, or not to be?

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con roverscon inues

read with in terest the articleScanning the Horizon in yourNovember 1997 edition.

I was especially interested inMichael Su t ton's c o mments

about the Treasury Board of Canada'sambitious undertaking in evaluatingimaging, document/records managementand workflow solutions (RDIMS RFP).

Having worked with Michael, and hav-ing read his book on document manage-

ment, I do admire h im. But havingworked on several of the RDIMS RFPresponses, I can write that he over esti-mated in quoting costs of $3,000 to$5,000 a seat. The license fee per seat is

substantially lower. Taking into accountthe number of seats referred to in thebid, I agree with him that the overall costis still substantial, and probably well overthe government's budget allocations.

Treasury Board faced two issues incompleting it's RDIMS effort. The firstissue is the fast pace of change in tech-nology versus the t ime required forintensive review and decision makingneeded to properly conclude such stud-ies. By the time choices w.ere made, thecomponents that comprised the inte-grated solutions proposed had beenupgraded two or three times. New solu-tions have since been brought to marketwhich deliver far superior functionality,and at lower cost. The bid responseswere outdated before the TreasuryBoard could publish their conclusion.

The second issue is universal needcompared to specific need. Despite thefact that I had represented the manufac-turer of one of the key components ofthe favoured solution, I could not hon-estly claim that the software was theperfect choice fo r a l l g o vernmentbranches. In fact, I know that in severalbranches, the products offered by com-petitors offered much better solutions.As a consultant, I can more readily offerthis opinion,but as a software represen-tative, I had to work within the confinesof the process, and for the success ofthe company I represented.

S Government Computer + j a n uary 1998

Regarding Michael Sutton's view onthe government's document manage-ment requirements, I hold his opinion inhigh regard, although I maintain adifferent view of the issues.Where Michael empha-sizes the im ortance op fd ocument storage (an :important issue in man- ".aging information in an ' ,.enterprise such as thefederal government) Iemphasize the manage-ment of information process-es, the control of work based onmoving, using, and reusing information.This is the essence of turning data intoinformation, and then into knowledge.Where Michael emphasizes the role ofrecords management and classificationfor reliable and secure access to infor-mation, which I see as a vertical solution,I emphasize the process control andworkflow; passing information cross theenterprise, which I see as a horizontalsolution. I believe the government needsto consider both views, and needs toincorporate both solutions.

There is, as yet, no single solutionthat delivers the functionality neededby all government departments. And,no single solution should be purchasedby the government as a u n i versalsolution. The Treasury Board's RDIMSeffort should result in a set of interop-erable standards on which IT managerswould base their technology decisions.Rather than looking to implement asingle, universal solution, the TreasuryBoard should guide IT managers inimplementing solutions that can shareinformation ( and e l ectronic d o cu-ments) with other systems implement-ed by government departments. Thesystems selected should provide thebest functionality to meet the verticalrequirements of individual branches,while meeting the government's uni-versal, horizontal requirements as laidout in the Treasury Board's integrationstandards.

r

both views before proceeding. +

Scanning the Horizon[GC Nov 97]

would like to clarify the context ofsome of my statements for your

I have been interviewed by PaulWeinberg in the past, and I respect him asan excellent reporter. However, keep inmind that Paul and I talked over coffee foralmost 2 hours. So, I said a lot, and he onlyhad room in his article for a tiny bit ofwhat was discussed. Therefore, there wasvery little room to the build up to thecontext of what I may have been trying tosay. Nonetheless, he reported my quotesfactually, accurately, and without preju-dice, and certainly could not anticipatehow others, (especially in Ottawa), couldinterpret (or misinterpret!!) my words.

I have been one of the opponents tothe RDIMS initiative from the beginning.I understand that one of the goals of theinitiative was to try to rationalize the pur-chasing power of the federal government

Continued on page 10

Steven BirnamSenior Consultant(former Regional Sales Manager,PC DOCS Canada)

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run RDIMS, along with the consultingservices dollars that would have beenused to select, implement a system, andtrain the users.

My crude calculations would lead meto suggest that this would increase thecost per seat substantially, and I estimated"3,000-5,000" per software seat (includ-ing software, hardware and network)because of the lost $$ opportunity cost.

Quote ¹ 2p. 33, « If the board (sic) had paid

attention to the loosening of the propri-etary standards in the technology andaHowed for more flexibility in the prod-uct choice, the p r i ces might haveinstead been "$500 to $600 for a seat fordocument management and another$300 to $400 for records management."

I stick by the first part of the state-ment totally, (e.g., when I jo ined thespecification groups at their inception-1994/95 - I was the only Canadian mem-ber for almost 9 months).You mentionedDMA and ODMA in your editorial of theissue I am quoted in. These specifica-tions eventually made their way into theRFP, but by their very nature made theRFP obsolete since any DMA "enabled"package could retrieve documents fromany other DMA "enabled" repository.One, and only one product, was not nec-essary to impose interoperability.

As for the second part of the state-ment, the figures I suggested were whatI felt departments could have paid forthese two components on a per seatbasis over two to three years ago. I maynot have properly emphasized this pointwith Paul. They would have been muchfurther ahead than they are now sincefunds would not have been lost at theend of the fiscal years and they couldnow consider workflow, imaging, etc.

Other QuotesThey stand as quoted, and express my

personal and professional opinion.P.S. The article also notes that a

[Treasury Board Secretariat] person wasunavailable for comments, I would liketo know why Treasury Board would not

get involved in such an important arti-cle, Someone should have been out

front with a flag indicating the TreasuryBoard position to h elp balance thereporting of the article. I do not knowwhy National Archives of Canada wasnot contacted; but I h a d suggestedRevenue Canada as a successful imple-mentation of an EDMS/RM application.When Paul called Revenue Canada hementioned that he had been told thatthey were not interested in being quot-ed oi reported on!!!! This is too bad,since it would lend credence to the factthat there are successful in i t iativesunderway.

Information I have received from anumber of sources leads me to believethat the negotiations are complete andthe contract has been signed off by theTBS project team and th e supplier,Though protracted, the contract is onthe verge o f re c e iving m i n isterialapproval. I am unsure of the fi nallynegotiated price per seat for all the com-ponents of RDIMS; but have been leadto believe that it is on average $750(plus or minus 15%, depending uponthe number of seats negotiated with thesupplier). Interested parties may wishto contact Susan Hall (941-9480) at TBSto receive a specific quote.

I stand by my quotes and comments,with the qualifications I have provideda bove. I s incerely apologize i f m yremarks have cased any anxiety. I wouldlike to.see the RDIMS initiative, or alter-natives, underway in the departmentsand agencies before the Federal Year2000 initiative overshadows RDIMS inthe allocation and absorption of IT bud-gets for the next two to three years.+

Michael J.D. Sutton,Adm~ CMC, ISP, M1TPartner, Document EngineeringFMP/Fiaman Mngmnt Partners LttL

(Michael Sutton is author of DocumentManagement for the Enterprise: Principles,Techniques, and Applications, published byJohn Wiley 8 Sonsi

Continued from page 8through the overall selection of one suiteof products; but I never felt it was worththe investment considering:1) the emergence o f t h e I n t e rnet

instead of dient/server as the plat-form of choice

2) the amount of time it would take tocomplete an evaluation

3) the fact that the evaluation would besuperceded by new versions of all theseparate products and brand newproducts before the negotiations werecompleted with the supplier of choice

4) the existence of such diverse busi-ness types in the federal governmentthat one suite of products could sat-isfy all the organizations

5) the availability, (at the time the initia-tive began), of the DMA and ODMAspecifications for interoperability

6) the detailed level of granularity andminutiae involved in the evaluation

7) the fact the the Federal Governmentin the USA has never been able to dothis type of evaluation.Now, let's look at exactly what I was

quoted as saying, and the context thatmight help explain my remarks:

Quote ¹ 1p. 33, "Treasury Board's specifica-

t ions, Sutton says, are 'rigid and tooexpensive, costing $3,000 to $5,000 aseat [for software licenses].'"

Nothing significant is l ikely to hap-pen....."They are no further ahead becausethey do not have the money, "he says.

Paul and I were discussing the 2+years of time that went into delaying adecision for many departments as theevaluation took place and the negotia-tions dragged on (The Treasury BoardRFI began in 1995). Many departments(by waiting) had missed opportunitiesto select and implement products overtwo or three years ago. They had lost themoney for software, network upgrades,and hardware acquisitions to prepare to


Personal Property Re istry enablesdirect interaction wit government

Compiled by Lee Hunter

nisys Corp.'s InformationServices G r ou p hasannounced the launch ofAtlantic Canada On-Line(ACOL) in partnership

with t he gov e rnments o f NewBrunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince EdwardIsland and Newfoundland.

The company says the service providesthe cornerstone to the governments' strat-egy of improving access to governmentinformation, resulting in increased dientsatisfaction, and ef5cient management ofgovernment resources. It is the result of anagreement signed by the four provinces ofAtlantic Canada and Unisys in May 1996.

During the past two years, Unisys andthe Nova Scotia Department of Housingand Municipal Affairs worked to devel-op and implement a new electronic reg-istry as de6ned in the new PersonalProperty Security Act (PPSA).

The project provides for transitionfrom a paper-based, labour-intensiveregistry to a new e lectronic registryaccessible through ACOL.

Clients of the registry are now. able toregister and search information fromremote locations, such as their of6cesand homes. ACOL offers the electroniccommerce infrastructure that enablesclients .to complete registry transac-tions„ including the seamless and securetransfer of electronic funds from dientaccounts to the appropriate govern-

e

ment accounts.

Continued on page 14 p ,


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overnment bud etsFl RSTDeluxScan monitors combine the latest technology withexacting quality assurance to to deliver a product that offers morefeatures than would be expected for the cost.

ADVA N CE D flat-square-tube technology delivers a moreconsistent image and digital on-screen controls give the user moreflexibility over the monitor's presets. Advanced controls such as tiltand colour balance are easily adjusted onscreen.

DYNAM IC focus corrects the shapeof the pixel so that the focus is increasedby approximately 20% or more and spotroundness is increased by 50%, resultingin consistently sharper images, even atthe edges and the corner. Anti-glare/anti-static/anti-reflection coatings maintainthe resolution of the image.

1992[0

• L• •

4DeluxScan 1SG+

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DeluxScan models such as the models 15G+ and 17B+ .

easy setup and compatibility with existing and futurehardware procurement.

TCO-92 compliance is now available on popular

WAR R A N T Y coverage is a full 3-years parts and

HYU N DAI is a global supplier of monitors and as such,

labour, including picture tube, in all major Canadian cities.

all DeluxScan monitors meet or exceed internationalregulations and compliance.

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Brown.

Continued from page 12David Wagner, president and CEO of

Unisys Canada and Housing MinisterGuy Brown hosted the launch.

The ACOL system is designed toprovide on-l ine access by govern-ment clients to government databas-es, an d t he Per s ona l P r o p er tyRegistry for Nova Scotia is the first ofmany applications.

"Unisys is co mmitted to h e lp ingAtlantic Canada On-Line offer its cus-tomers improved access to governmentservices and information," said DavidWagner, Unisys Canada president andchief executive of6cer."Through jointefforts and by capitalising on the latesttechnology, we anticipate a number ofother applications to be up-and-runningwithin tbe next several months."

When personal property — c ars,mobile homes, furni ture, airplanes,etc.— is used as security for a financialarrangement between a borrower anda lender, supporting documents arefiled w i t h t he Pe r sonal P ropertyRegistry.

Prior to tbe new system, all informa-tion at the registry was paper-based andcould only be accessed on a county bycounty basis via an actual visit to a coun-ty registry of6ce. This process resultedin a fragmented, cumbersome and cost-ly processing system.

With the new system, the registrymaintains a database of in formationabout personal property. Clients are elec-tronically directed to the institution orindividual holding the security docu-ments, eliminating the need to manuallymaintain actual documents within theregistry.

This new system will streamline oper-ations, and make it easier for businessesand citizens to access information.

"It's a whole new' way of doing busi-ness. The n e w P e r sonal P ropertyRegistry, through ACOL, is both a tech-nology solution as well as a reform ofthe legislation and business processes inthe Personal Property Registry," said

"It provides an electronic province-wide registry instead of the old system of18 paper-centred, county-based registties,It will reduce tbe time and effort requiredto register information using a manual


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process, formerly taking days or weeks, toone that takes just minutes or hours.

"The new registry exempli6es this gov-ernment's approach of employing tech-nology in an effective manner, to improveefficiencies and provide quality service tothe corporate and consumer communi-ffes of this province," Brown added.

In Nova Scotia, the Department ofBusiness and Consumer Services isresponsible for l eading the govern-ment's partnership with ACOL.

"This announcement is solid ev i-dence that the ACOL- government part-nership is working," said Business andConsumer Services Minister WayneGaudet."Our department has a mandateto make business and individual deal-ings with government easier, and tberegistry will certainly do that."

I t is anticipated the registry w i l levolve into an Atlantic regional system

Ssfe-IAEEN TO Host iissiANdioSroraioest ot SIN TreatySissisg Cosieresee«Sos. RA, TSST»

communities.

where the f our p r ov incial govern-ments will operate within a similar leg-islative, technological and businessframework.

This c o operative a p p r oach isunprecedented in inter-provincial juris-dictions, and responds to the needsexpressed by the f inancial and legal

ACOL is delivered by Unisys and aconsortium o f pa r t ners i n c luding:CorporaTel, a cl ient support centerorganisation; and Software Kinetics, asoftware engineering company.

In-house IT projects at riskWhen compared with contract pro-

jects audited in the past, federal in-house information technology projectswere better aligned with departmental


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ElectronicServiceDeliverySymposium '98

'"; or the public, chances are you are".'lo pnsvide better service lo them.'' hAaleriel hAanagement Institute and

' 'a two day Symposium and Trade Show

and government lo learn &om INperls' future, of eledronic service delivery.

Keynote SpeakersKevin Lynch, Deputy

Minister, Industry CanadaGuy Theriautt, CG,National Defence

Oscar A. Goldfa*,U.S. Department of

Pehu Melanson,Canada Post Corporation

Workshop

Defense

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addressed include:

Symposium presentations focuson ESD Issues, ESD Technologyand ESD in Adion. Topics to be

+ Electronic Commerce• Management of

electronic informationn Political, legal, and

ial issues surroundingelectronic informationSecurity, control and ECC web sile at eevw.ecc,ce or contact

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ear 2000 582 Somenfet Sheet West, Ottawa, Ohtining E-maik cd8a4eoc.cas,-r

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Deloiie 8 ToucheFfeemarkets Online

Fukrum TechnologiesIBM Canada Ud.Indushy Canada

Jetformlang MichenerLGS Consulting

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Parlnefship (NCAL)Hoftel Channetware

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A tale of three departmentsBy James Careless

= he Year 2000 (Y2K) problem: it's achallenge that needs no introductionto government computer professionals.With the millennium less than two

years away, IT people throughout Ottawaare scrambling to avoid a potentialY2K data meltdown.



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At the head of their efforts is theTreasury Board Secretariat, which estab-lished the Chief In formation OfficerYear 2000 Project Office in 1996. TheProject Office is helping all governmentagencies and departments find commonsolutions to the Y2K problem, as well askeeping an eye on how each is doingwith its own Y2K efforts.

So how wel l i s the p rocessdoing? Well, Ross Hutcbison,President of the I T c onsultingQ rm R os s Hut c h inson a n dAssociates, has his doubts. "Myconcern would be that there' sbeen a lot of p lanning, but notenough action," says Hutchison,"and that they' re well behind theeight- ball and they know it."

Echoing his concerns is RossGraham, Vice President of EDSCanada's Government ServicesD ivision. A l though he ci te sRevenue Canada as "having madesome pretty g oo d p r o gress",Graham says "others are quite abit behind the power curve, andsome unfortunately are not yeteven fully aware how far behindthey are."

M aking t h i ngs w o r se , o fcourse, is the fact that many pro-grams have to be Y2K complaintby the s tar t o f 1 9 99 , s implybecause their software automaticallyprojects a year ahead.A11 told, it's a diffi-cult and unprecedented challenge thatfaces federal IT managers, one that maycost up to a billion dollars to solve.

Lining up behind the eight ballOf course, in any line - even behind

an eight-ball - there are those at thefront, and others at the back. Gettingthose at the rear to acknowledge theirposition publicly is usually near impos-sible. However, the front-runners aretypically more open.As acknowledged by Graham, one of

the front-runners is Revenue Canada. Itstarted implementing four-digit dates asfar back as 1990, says Dick Sansom, thed epartment's D i rector G e neral o fDevelopment Support.'"We probably gotan easier start on i t than most otherdepartments because a lot of our sys-tems are centered on large databases,"he explains."Because of the large infor-mation files we maintain, we got intofourWgit standards relatively early."


As well,"the nature of our operations isthat our systems get regular maintenancechangm and upgtades each year, sometimeseven three to four fimes a year," Sansomadds."In addition to having more up.todatesoftware covering many functions, thismeans that we have a group of mainte-nance programmers working with our sys-tems who are quite IRmiHar with them"

Jf

Right now Revenue Canada has upgradedabout half its systems, but finding spaceto test the sofhvac is no mean feat. Thedepartment's IT section does have somehardware set aside for such tests, but stillit's not quite the same thing as runnir~the software on the actual mainframe, tofind any last bugs. So although DickSansom expects his people to reach their

January 1, 1999 deadline comfort-ably, there's still the nagging issue ofhow well things will work once2000 actually arrives.

A second department well intoi ts Y2K conversion i s H u manResources Development Canada(HRDC), whose responsibilitiesinclude Employment Insuranceand Old Age Pension cheques. LikeRevenue Canada, this departmenthas been working on the Y2Kproblem for well over a year, saysGary Depew, Director~ n eral ofHRDC's Year 2000 Project.

The first thing HDRC did intackling the YZK problem was tobegin "assessing of all our code,"says Depew. This was no smalltask: checking the department's70 'm ission-critical ' p r o gramsrequired filtering "about 18 mi l-l ion l ines of c ode". Of t h ese,"about eight percent will requiresomeone to look at it," he says.

Based on what he's seen so far,Depew admits that HRDC's Y2K prob-lem is "bigger than what we had antici-pated." But he believes that the process-es that have been put in p lace, com-bined with what has been learned todate, will allow HRDC to hit its January1999 target. This is for the department's'mission-critical' programs only, howev-er. As for the 120 'non- critical' pro-grams? Gary Depew expects that workon some of them will continue past theturn of the millennium.

Like Sansom, Depew's biggest concernis testing and verification. "And evenw hen this is completed, one of t h ebiggest things that wil l remain is thetremendous amount of implementationthat will have to be done." Meanwhile, atStatistics Canada, substantial progress hasbeen made in putting together Y2K solu-t ions, says Barbara Slater, Director~ era lof the Informatics Branch "We' ve got vir-tually all our assessment and analysis com-


"This means we' ve been able to makeYear 2000 changes during regular sched-uled maintenance. We don't have to go ona special binge to find moldy old code no-one's worked with for years and years."

Still, even Revenue Canada has itsY2K soft spots. First, even with its atten-tion to software, "there are still systemsdesigned way back in the 1970s in use,when space was a very precious thing,and you saved every last bit you couldby using two-digit dating," says Sansom.

Second, the types of such systemsthat most concern him are those creat-ed by th i rd-party vendors, some ofwhich are no longer in business. Forinstance, part of the GST taxation sys-tem relies on an obsolete programcalled "Gamma", which is not even soldanymore, let alone Y2K- compatible.However, Sansom isn't too w o r r ied,because "we recognized this problem ayear or so ago, and we' ve built into ourplans a rewrite of its COBOL coding."

Third, there's the issue of testing, tomake sure the re-writes a~ w o rk.

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Year 2000Continued from page 1S

piete, and we expect to have all of ourmission- critical programs into compli-ance by the end of August, 1998, and fullytested by the end of that year."

However, Stats Can still has other Y2Kconcerns, mainly with the data it receivesfrom a host of outside sources. This iswhy it's critical for the department toensure "that our partners are also takingappropriate actions to deal with YZK,"says Slater. "This, of course, adds to thecomplexity o f ou r t ask, particularlybecause these outsidesources are not directlyunder our control."

Helping find goodhelp: PWGSC

Finding the right kindof Y2K help is going tobe an increasing chal-lenge as the Millenniumapproaches. That ' sbecause the La w o f'Supply and D emand'will apply: as time runsout, more and more managers will startclamouring for Y2K contractors. Thismeans the supply will get tighter, andcosts will go up: not exactly the kind ofscenario any time-driven, cost-consciousgovernment IT manager wants to thinkabout. In an effort to ease the situation,Public Works and Government ServicesCanada has drawn up an RFP designedto make things easier. The goal is to allowgovernment departments to do t heirexternal Y2K procurement just once,says PWGSC Informatics ProcurementDirector Sharon Chamberlain.

"We want to identify suppliers whowill be able to take on the full scope ofthe challenges," she says. To make itworth their while, PWGSC has set aside$ 1 mill ion i n g uaranteed work f o raccepted suppliers. In other words, bysigning on, each of t hem has beenpromised a predetermined share of thispot as a minimum fee, with the potentialto make more money as the situationallows.

It's a form of 'retainer', designed toensure that external Y2K suppliers remaincommitted to the government as thedemand for their services from the privatesector grows. (To this end, PWGSC is also

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willing to renegotiate fee schedules withthese companies from time to t ime, tomake sure that Ottawa remains as attrac-tive a customer as the TD bank.)

Ironically, it's the private sector whotold PWGSC that such a cash commit-ment was critical to meeting Ottawa'sY2K goals."Industry here in Canada toldus that if the government wanted tohave access to these type of resources,we had to stand up and be counted,"says Chamberlain."And this is what this

However, there is a caveat: this RFP isintended to cover "mission-critical" gov-ernment functions only, rather than the

whole range of Ottawa'sIT functions. Includedin the l is t o f c r i t icalfunctions is food inspec-tion, transfer paymentsto provinces and territo-ries, employment insur-ance and pensions, pub-lic sector payroll, andweather for ecasting.Should the demand forY2K contractors exceedthe supply, it's these ITfunctions which will get

first call on what's available.

Will we make it?The big question, of course, is will the

federal government succeed in its Y2Kefforts, or will the whole system comecrashing down?

The likely outcome, according to EDSCanada's Ross Graham, will be a bit ofboth. "I don't believe as it stands thatwe' re going to escape unscathed here,"he predicts."I think that there's going tobe some systems that will fail, and somesystems that will not perform the waythey should, and that's going to causesome significant problems for us."

Who makes it - and who doesn't -will probably effect the fates of manyIT careers in the p ub l ic sector fo ryears to come. That's why the Y2Kproblem is so critical for governmentIT managers, because it w o n ' t j u s taffect the people relying on these sys-tems, but also the reputations of thosein charge of them. +

More information about the federal gov-ernment's Y2K efforts can be found atwwwinfo2000.gc.ca. iames Careless is afreelance writer based in Ottawa.

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What to fix zehen youcan't fix everything

By Steve Hamon

he Year 2000 cr isis hase scalated t o t h e p oi n twhere the vast majority ofbusinesses and g overn-m ent d e partments a r e

physically unable to fix all of the Year2000 errors in their computer systems.According to the Gartner Group, bythe end of 1999 less than 50 % of all Dorganizations will have achieved full apYear 2000 compliance in theiraPPlication Portfolios. In o ther -=.==W>i i".'"'weqfj.=.=~ ='.~~~q

words, over half of all businesses ~~~fPj >p<~ 'tQ -.'-:,',,.

t ime. Time will, quite simPly, tt m ::,:-.--„.'=,-.

hiring teams of consultants and '~~ j i tg~>l~„;tli . ~~,"., ,

:

the problem. As Frederick Brooks

on -

' g resourcesto a late software project simply makes • Important — those applications that mit later."Things are no different today, should be fixed, but won't stop the reand these consultants may not even be organization f rom p er forming i t s spavailable,as many organizations begin to major functions (e.g. accountingcompete for the same scarce resources. applications. Incorrect accounting h

So what can you do? The solution is entries are repairable, with someto refocus your team's efforts. Conduct a additional manual effort)

I'em y'~~"-"~i'4'~4"7'll': "-".~it"'~~%Ãpytya"~~~~giv/I u~p-~~% i t ~ ' 4 ~ - " tiyqtttt'~p"

t riage-type of assessment of al l yourapplications, and divide them into threecategories:• Mission critical — those applications

that absolutely must operate correct-ly or the o rganization wil l sufferirreparable damage (e.g. applicationsthat create and print welfare or dis-ability cheques.A month or two delayhere could actually cost lives)

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Nice to have — those applications thatare important as time savers, or jobaids, but which don't need to be inoperation for the organization to per-form efficiently (e.g. automated callrouting systems. You can always hirean extra receptionist or two)Triage is often a very difficult activity.

eciding which are the most crit icalplications can become political and

personal, as all involved fight fortheir systems and their areas ofresponsibility. Almost by defini-tion, all applications are important,or they wouldn't still be in exis-tence. But r emember, w i thouttriage you might not have anythingthat works on January l . Isn't i tbetter to ensure that at least yourmost critical applications are oper-able?

Your team must focus on repair-ing your t ruly m ission cr i t icalapplications. These applications

ust work, and so this is where yourpair team's time and energy must be

For the "important" and the "nice toave" applications, the focus must switch


January 1998 + Covernment Computer 23

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T'Ime fOr triage on automated phns. These plans are use d aiter thenewmi i ieanimn,and any0 cessing plant execute their work based tio n s. A master hardcopy document is

( on trued fyoyn 0 e 23 date and time driven, and the acfivities da ta that will cause Year 2000 process-performed by the machine are governed i ng p r o b lems is removed from the sys-

from fixing the application code to find- by the currently effective plan. Each ter n before those problems occur.ing quick, easy and s t raightforward machine keeps five years worth of his-workaroundsthatavoidtheproblem.This torical performance and throughput Example:aHows the repair team to focus on the data against eachpian,ona shift byshif t At a lar ge retail outlet, aH bad debtmission critical applications. Then, once accounts are managed through a cus-the critical appBcations have been suc- Just before the first shift on January 1 tom-built bad debt accounting system.cessfufiyrepairedand tested, yourrepair Zppp the h i s toricai in formation j s Due to Year 2000 problems, this appli-team can turn to resolving the problems downioaded from the machines A one- cat i on wil l not correctly record activityin the less critical appBcations.Even if this time batch program reads each histori- aga inst these accounts, nor wiH it calcu-can't llappen untH after the year 2000, the cal record in sequence and updates the late iiiterest amounts or penalties.impact of missing thatstringent deadline effecfive date to be Jan 1,2ppp,and the Rather than making any codewill be as minor as possible, since your e ffective time range to be 1 second chan ges, th e b u s iness p rocess i sworkarounds will be in place. long. For example, the oldest. record is changed. In the faH of 1999, a final push

It's time to become creative. Consider updated to be effective from Jan 1, zppp is m ade to collect on these accounts,these three innovative workarounds for from pp.pp.pi th rough pp pp.pz th e and aH possible bad debt write-offs areyour non-mission critical apPlications: next oldest from pp pp.pz to pp pp.p3 take n. In late December 1999 one final

and so on. A cross-reference report is mon t h end accounting run for bad debtcreated, mapping the old date, time and acc o unts is performed, to record anyshift to the new, one second long time final updates. A ful l set o f d e tailedwindow on January 1, 2000. reports is produced from this run, along

2000 problem results only in obvi- becomes the manual Bad Debt

gent ~eagles and can recog~ e ' 'with a spew~ d ered Bs& o f

ously incorrect data being dis-

rathei than fixin the system

Example: On January 1, 2000 one bad debtIn a government department ; , - .~ - .~~4~':i;. ."= ; :;=-.-==-".s j4=;-,-====--' : = . = :. ' . - - . summaiyrecoid,(calculated during

concerned with old age pensions, .

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file. This system contains a routine

age, for display on the caseworker's ter- During the first shift on January 1, the dated January 1, 2000, so it will not cause

is calculated by the system based on the newly «tweaked data. From then on, aH After J anuary 1, Zppp, any activitydate of birth. The only Year 2000 Problem histodcal Monition is reported as ff against these accounts is recorded manuai-m d" aPPhcanon is d ~culafion- m the process~ had occ~ ed m that one l y%~ the m d d~ ac c o~ ~ m t h e

h istorical data is replaced with t h e anyYear2000processingproblems.

1930 years old.

t

second window during the first shift in Bad Debt Ledger. One monthly entry is

mance calculations ratios trends etc are summary record, to keep the totals cor-Instead 0 f changing the code used to calculated as before, with no application rect. No system code changes are required.

calculate age the caseworkers can be code changes required to either the One final word of advice. No applica-trained to ignore the incorrect data and machines themselves or to any down- tion lives in complete isolation. Be sure,manually calculate the client's age. stream reporting Programs. The actual before embarking on your triage exer-

dates and shifts are determined manual- cis e , that you have identified aH inter-Fix the data, not the system. ly by comparing the one second time faces to and from the mission critical

Data can be "tweaked" to avoid caus- w in d ow with the cross-reference report applications. You must either converting Year 2000 processing problems. cre a ted by the one-time batch program. the s ystems on the other end of theseFixing the data is often easier than fix- interfaces at the appropriate time, oring the systems that use the data. develop the necessary bridges between

) i

Document it, then delete it.The business process can be changed

to minimize or even remove automationfrom your low volume, non-critical func-

the applications.+Steve Hamon is a consultant with DMR

Group.


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Choosing a high end computerBy James Careless

It's the process through which up to75% percent of PCs are purchased byOttawa, at an annual value of about$180 million.

"I run the NMSO Benchmark TestingLab as well," Kirk tells GC. "We test forspecification compliance, compatibility,and the actual value of the computersbeing offered to us by suppliers, basedon how well they perform, their featureset, and their usability." The BTL testseverything f'rom simple PCs right up tohigh-end servers.

Given this, Kirk is well-qualified toanswer the question, "how high-end acomputer do I really need? ' His response- one which might startle some cost-crunchedADMs - is that the marketplaceis recommending either the K6 (266MHz) or the Pentium II (266 or 300MHz) rather than save a few dollars on aless-advanced PC.

Now Ian Kirk is a self-admitted tech-nology enthusiast, but that's not why heprefers the higher end. Instead, he advo-cates the more advanced, better-

equipped computer for strictly econom-ic reasons: given current budgets, gov-ernment departments have "to assumethat they' ll be using whatever comput-ers they buy for the next 5 or 6 years."In that time, of course, all kinds of newsoftware — and upgraded versions of cur-rent programs - will hit the market.Given past trends, it's safe to say thatthese programs will demand more mem-ory and processing power than what' sin use today.

"Every manager will remember thedays of 286s and 386s, when we allwent to Windows," Kirk recalls. "In aninstant, the move to this environment[made obsolete] everything they' dbought previously."Although he doesn' texpect the actual hardware demands ofWindows to c hange much w h enMicrosoft introduces Windows '98 orWindows NT 5.0, Ian Kirk still believesit makes much more sense to leave a lotof room for expansion, so that yourcomputer doesn't get caught out.

t's served you well, but its time isover, and now that once-impres-

sive Pentium 75 wh ich hasgraced your desktop for the lastfew years is destined for the

'recycle bin'. So what do you replace itwith: the latest Pentium II with moreprocessing power than NORAD, or amore modest - and less expensive-model which can do your current work,with room to spare?

It's not an easy decision, whetheryou' re an executive replacing just onePC, or a manager choosing hundreds ofcomputers for an entire department. Forthe best answer, Government Computerturned to Ian Knk, Technical Advisorwith Science Informatics ProfessionalServices Sector (SIPSS), a part of PublicWorks and G o vernment ServicesCanada.

Ian Kirk knows microcomputers. Hehas to, because Kirk plays a key role indrawing up the federal government'sNational Master Standing Offer (NMSO).

January 1998 + Covernment Computer 29

How much is enough?But how h i gh-end does someone

have to go when they work in co r -porate communications, where thePCs are primarily used for word-pro-c essing? At a m i n i m um, Ian K i r kadvises an Intel Pentium or AMD K6200 MHz with MMX capability, a twogigabyte hard drive, 32 Mb of RAM,and a v ideo controller f rom a rep-u table manufacturer w ith 2 Mb . o fvideo RAM. Anything less, and you' rel eaving yo ursel f o pen t o 'F u t u reSoftware Shock', an experience akint o t r y in g t o run N et s cape a n dWindows 3.11 on a 386 DX 25. If thesystem in question is to be used forh ome-based t e l ecommuting, K i r krecommends considering other addi-tions such as a high speed 24X vari-able speed CD-ROM, a Sound Blaster16 compatible audio adapter, and a56 K modem. This last i tem mightmay some buyers nervous, given thatthere's currently no 56K standard onthe market. However, Kirk says thatusers can guard against backing the

wrong format by "selecting a modemmanufacturer that commits to of fer-ing a free upgrade to the pendingITU communication standard." Suchmodems can be reprogrammed at afuture date to match whatever stan-dard is selected, so that users don' tget caught out.

He also advises taking a ser iouslook at installing removable media dri-ves such as a Zip or Jazz on your newsystem, to maximise the amount ofdata you can take away on a portabledisk. Before y o u m a k e a fina l

soon.

s election, however, take a l ook a twhat's available on the market. That' sbecause storage capacity is going up.For instance, "at Comdex, a companydisplayed a drive that can read andwrite 200 Mb. worth of data on pro-prietary media, and in the same driveit can read and write 3 1/2 f loppies,"Kirk says. "This may wel l challengecurrent popul a r h igh- capacityportable formats."As for DVD? Despiteall the hype surrounding this new datastorage medium, Ian K irk c o unselscaution. Although he describes it as "afantastic advance in CD technology,"Kirk believes that the first DVD appli-cations will be focused on the homeentertainment market. In other words,you won't be needing it for business

If a user is still intent on adding DVDto their new computer, "I would advisethey choose what is known as a 'secondgeneration drive'," he says. "These areable to play standard audio CDs - sur-prisingly not mandatory for the DVDstandard - and read CDR writeable disks.It is also imperative that you purchase ahigh end video controller with a MPEG-2 hardware-based decoder on board. Ihave seen inefiicient video controllersrunning DVD that introduce so muchpixelation as to make the whole expen-diture a waste. The audiophile shouldlook for drives that have Digital/Analogconverters that wil l support 96 kHzsampling."

True and false economiesRefitting an entire department with

Pentium IIs is not a cheap proposition.

Faced with this, any savvy manager willlook for ways to cut costs.

This is understandable, says Ian Kirk.However, it must be done the right way,in order not to cause havoc down theline.

One way to save money is to con-sider all companies, large and small,who have a good reputation for value

and reliability and support . "thereseems to be a curious notion in somedepartments that only one segment inthe computer i ndustry can de l iverthat."

Another cost-cutting measure is toconsider the Microsoft/Intel definedNet PC standard. I t 's essentially asealed unit - sans floppy and CD thatis remotely managed. "The emphasisof the Net PC is less on the hardwareand more on i t s manageability overt he ne t w o rk, " c om m ents Ki rk ."Through D es k top ManagementInterface (DMS technology, the net-work administrator has total controlover a uniformity of conf igurations,security, and asset management." Butthere is a d o w n s ide t o N e t P C s.Because t h ey' re n o t sta n d-alonemachines, Net PCs may be perceivedas 'lower status' than conventionalPCs.

'The bottom l ine: buy fortomorrow, but buy smart

Taken as a whole, Ian Kirk's advicepoints the way for intelligent PC pur-chases. Look ahead, he advises, anddon't scrimp unless you know exactly


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An interview saith Phi/ JjfcLellan

By Ross Hutchison

hil McLellan, assistant deputy minister forGovernment Telecommunications andInformatics Services spoke recently with

Government Computer.

concentrating all of i t s resources onPWGSC and wil l have its hands full.They, in turn, will need outside help todeliver because of the huge demand.

GC: You also said that the next 'ring' ofyour activities would be to provide com-mon services. How has that evolved?

McLellan: We are active in two ways,as a broker and as a deliverer.

What we look for in either case areopportunities where there is consensusthat a common service or aggregatedapproach makes sense and that GTIScan perform a legitimate role in addingvalue without competing with commer-cial alternatives.

A key area where we had great suc-cess as a broker is in the telecom areawhere we are now dealing with thenew deregulated environment, We havejust finished establishing a TelecomSupply Arrangement and the first con-tracts are signed. By aggregating therequirements and leveraging the newcompetitive environment we were ableto effect double-digit percentage sav-ings. As well, both the departments andsuppliers like the process.

GC: What about areas where GTIS isa service deliverer?

McLelan: There is still a lot of activity.The take-up of our hne relay service has

been excellent. GENet is also widely usedfor remote locations and also for largerdepartments which use it as a gatewaybetween their network and provincialnetworks. Our data centre services con-tinue to provide mainframe and other ser-vices to twenty departments, producingsavings to the Crown through consolida-tion and optimisation of Crown assets.

GC: How do you select areas to getinvolved in?

McLellan: On the optional side, weemphasize areas where there is~sponsorship and a fully accepted rolefor GTIS. Electronic commerce facilita-tion services areas, such as messaging,directories and security functionalitylike PKI and authentication are in verystrong demand and we can really act asa coordinating and enabling agent.

W e are very successful with o u rEnquiries Canach activities. We operate theCanadaWeb Site and provide PubliService,an internal Bulletin Board service andoperate Reference Canada for access toinformation by the general public.

GC: Is alternative service delivery ofsome existing activities still a priority?

McLc jjati: Yes, it is. We have a strategyto consoBdate, rationalise and then con-sider an alternative approach, where com-petitive commercial alternatives exist.

GC: Last year you indicated that thecore or 'inner ring' of GTIS' activitieswill be t o s e rve Public Works andGovernment Services Canada (PWGSC)welL Is this still the case?

McLellan: Yes. Serving PWGSC is ourprimary strategic focus. This is partlybecause of the strong demand withinthe PWGSC business lines for new andimproved systems.

Big things are happening in each ofthe areas. Government OperationalServices demands relate to the FinancialInformation Strategy with the needs foraccrual accounting and better reportingto parliament. Public Service reform isrequiring major change s toC ompensation Sys t ems. Sup p l yOperations need systems to support anincrease in delegation of authority aswell as the new benefits-driven pro-curement approach. Real PropertyService has major initiatives related toalternate forms of delivery in mainte-nance that require system support.

On top of all that, Year 2000 compli-' ance is a major undertaking and several ofthe PWGSC systems are mission-critical.

GC: This must be really concentratingthe Application Management Services(AMS) activities.

McLellan: Ye s. A M S w i l l be

32 Covernment Computer + January 1998

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part of the revenue. So far, they areactive in Quebec.

As well, we have a contract wi thDrake Personnel for overload servicesfor regional cheque production. Thatbusiness has peaks and valleys for suchproducts as GST Rebate and CSBs. Drakelooks after the peaks.

We want to have more alternate ser-vice delivery arrangements but in manycases GTIS doesn't own the business.Network management is a good exam-ple. That's where prior consensus withthe client community is essential.

GC: Which areas have you looked at?McLellan: The largest area we are con-

sidering is our data centre operations. Wehave issued an RFI and are analysing theresponses. I am hopeful, if appropriate,that a deal could be done before March31, 1998, although that's tight.

GC:Are there any you have consumated?McLelhtn: There are two, although of

different models, We have a l icenseagreement with the CGI Group relatedto the Common Departmental FinancialSystem. They are marketing the productto provinces and agencies and we get

Canada Canada~ I Pub lic Works and T ra vaux publics etgwl+ ~ Government Services Services gouvernementaux

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Committee.

GC: H ow d oes the w o rk o f t h eNetwork Planning Committee fit in?

McLellan: Under th is in i t iative acooperative of five or six medium sizeddepartments has formed. They are inter-ested in getting ATM services to accom-modate their bandwidth demands. Inthis case, PWGSC is just one of the coop-erative members. As well, GTIS will han-dle the procurement. Unlike previoustelecom initiatives, we are not countingon or dependent upon the large telecomusers' participation. They can go on theirown today but the door is open for themto join later if they choose.

GC: You have mentioned a funding issuerelated to service delivery. What is that?

McLeiiani Previously we delivered amix of mature and new services and hadthe opportunity to crosssubsidize thenew ones. Today when we are a brokeronly for large volume services such astelecom, we do a good job, save thedepartments large dollars but do not reapmuch benefit ourselves. We, therefore, donot have the flexibility when it comes tofunding new services development.

A few months ago I raised this issuewith the Deputy Ministers on the TIMS

GC: Is that what initiated the TIMSinterest in common services?

McLellan: Yes, in part. Also, theirthree Enterprise thrusts — business ser-vices, people services and informationservices — were cross departmental inscope and generated a great deal of inter-est in common infrastructure relative tothe funding and governance questions.

They identified that there was a needfor a robust, well planned infrastructureto serve these areas. I made them awarethat the old model doesn't work andthat we need a new arrangement forfunding and governance.

GC: Can you speculate on GTIS' rolecoming out of this activity?

McLe]lani There are areas with noargument such as the Telecom SupplyArrangement. There is also renewedinterest in infrastructure that is provid-ing improved information to the public.There is almost a political interest inproviding a single point of contact withimproved search tools, initially for theinformation and then for transactions.Pressure is coming from the public aswell as provinces and municipalities.Frankly, some provinces are more fleetof foot in this issue and are ahead of us.

One result we can anticipate is that itwill provide some much needed clarityfor GTIS' future direction. +IVe Ross Hutchison of Ross Hutchison 6i.Associates specializes in market studies ofinformation technology in Canadian govern-ments. He can be reached at 905-844-4069.

34 Government Computer + january 1998

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Continued from page 14objectives, had more senior manage-ment involvement and were brokendown into manageable components.However, in house projects need to beimproved to provide the assurance thatthey will meet their clients' needs ontime and on budget. That was the opin-i on of t h e Audi tor General in h i sDecember report.

The government has embarked on anumber of in-house information technology projects in its drive to respond to tbeneeds of taxpayers and reduce costs. TheAuditor General examined three of theseprojects, namely Revenue Canada'sStandardised Accounting and CorporateTax System, the innovative Strategis web-site project of Industry Canada and the Seif-Serve Systems run by Human ResourcesDevelopment Canada. The latter project isdirected primarfiy toward dispensingemployment insurance information.

The report identifies the risks associ-ated with faiTing to record and track timeand actual project costs. without thiskind of tracking, projects can take longer,cost more and deliver less," says DenisDesautels. The Auditor General estimatesthat each project wil l cost taxpayersbetween $50 million and $100 million.

Ironically the government does notapply to i tself the performance mea-sures it demands of i t s contractors.When the government contracts outcomputer systems development work, italways demands costs and schedule per-formance measures from the contractor.However, the three in-house projectsthat were developed primarily by gov-ernment staff were not subject to thesesame performance requirements.

While these initiatives were gearedtoward improving service to the public,in two cases, technology solutions wereintroduced prior to proper identifica-tion of end-users and their needs, claimsthe Auditor General. "Clients should beproperly i d e n t i f ied a n d inv o lvedthroughout a project — from the plan-ning stage to final implementation," saidDesautels. "Understanding the client isthe first step of good planning."

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Calendar Routines, a Year 2000 datelogic conversion tool. This upgrade pro-vides customers with an even fasterdate logic solution by automating muchof the remediation process. With justover two years remaining until the turnof the century, Platinum claims organi-sations are selecting the t ime-savingdate logic, or w indowing, techniqueover field expansion methods.

"An effective way to streamline today' sYear 2000 r emediation p rojects i sthrough the use of automation tools," saidDick Heiman, research manager atInternational Data Corporation. "Thisannouncement of TransCentury CalendarRoutines' enhanced functionality shouldbe welcome news to large organizationslooking for a way to accelerate Year 2000remediation,"

The company says its new versionof TransCentury eases remediation byensuring that faulty date logic foundin common " IF" statements can bequickly repaired in COBOL and PL/1programs. This function alone typical-ly addresses from 30 to 70 percent ofa n organization's p r o g ram l o g i cremediation.

Meanwhile Ottawa-basedAPG Solutionsand Technologies has unveiled new soft-ware called PC/Y2000 that it says will easeYear 2000 conversions for personal com-puters. The softwaie analyses all data in aPC environment and creates reportswhich identify tbe elements that need tobe converted.

APG president Andre Poirier said, "Inour opinion this tool constitutes tbe onlycoherent and efficient software which pre-pares personal computers in a dient/serv-er environment for the year 2000."

And from Markham's CybermationInc comes a product for testing and inte-gration of year 2000 dates and changes.ESP Dateline 2000 Test Bench providesan integrated test environment whichthe company says is an exact replica ofproduction environments. Entire appli-cations or individual jobs and programsare easy to verify and integrate in a real-life test to ensure integrity.

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Do you specify, recommend,approve, purchase or influenceths purchase of irrformation tech-nology products or services?DYes 0 No

If yes, what is the value ofpurchases with which you arsinvolved this fiscal year?Q 01 Over $100 Million0 02 $50 Million to 99.9 Million0 03 $10 Million to 49.9 Million0 04 $5 Million to 9.9 Million0 05 $3 Million to 4.9 Million0 06 $1 Million to 2.9 Million0 07 $500,000 to $999,9990 08 under $500,000

Whish beat dsaorlbsa yourCOMPANY MANAGEMENT0 A C orporate/General0 B F inancial0 C A dministrative/purchasing0 D M arketingCOMPUTER SYSTEMS/OPERATIONS0 E M anagement0 F S upervisory0 G S taff0 H Management0 I St a f f

Whish bast dascmibss ths business or Industr y at your

'Free for quaffiied puhyc sector employees. Please answer ay questions. Puhllsher resenres theright Io determine quaailcailan. Yaad in Canada only.Please answer the following questions to determine qualification.

Iob t l t ls? Caslaot one)ENGINEERING0 H Management0 I St a ffPROF ESSIOllULL0 J C o nsultant0 K E ducator0 L O ther, specify

PLEASE SP E C IFY YOU R D E PA RT M EN T O R A S EN CYFEOEFML GOIIERNNIENT0 01 Agriculture and Agri-Food0 02 Attorney General (Justice)Q 03 Auditor General0 04 Citizenship and Immigration0 05 Environment0 06 Fisheriss and Oceans0 07 Foreign Affairs0 08 Health0 09 Heritage Canada0 10 Human Resources Development0 11 Indian Affairs and Northern Dev.D 12 IndustryQ 13 Infrastructure0 14 Intergovernmental Affairs0 15 International Trade0 16 Machinery of Government0 17 Multiculturalism

PROWNCIIIL GOV ERNNIENT0 35 Addiction Research Foundation0 36 Agriculture and Food0 37 Attorney General0 38 Auditor General0 39 Citizenship0 40 Community and Social Services0 41 Consumer/Commercial Relations0 42 Culture, Tourism and Recreation0 43 Disability0 44 Ec. Development and Trade0 45 Education and Training0 46 Environment and Energy0 47 Finance0 48 Francophone Affairs0 49 Health0 50 Housing0 51 Human Rights Commission0 52 Information and PrivacyQ 53 Intergovernmental Affairs

0 73 Municipal0 74 Crown Corp.

0 18 National Archives0 19 National Defence0 20 National Revenue0 21 Natural Resources0 22 Parliamentary Affairs0 23 Public Works and Gov. Services0 24 Public Service Commission0 25 Public Service Renewal0 26 Queen's Privy Council0 27 Regional Development0 28 Science, Research and Development0 29 Statistics Canada0 30 Transport0 31 Treasury Board0 32 Veterans Affairs0 33 Western Economic Diversification0 34 Other Department (please specify)

0 54 Labour RelationsQ 55 Liquor Board0 56 Lottery Corp.0 57 Management Board of Cabinet0 58 Municipal Affairs0 59 Native Affairs0 60 Natural Resources0 61 Northern Development and Mines0 62 Ombudsman0 63 Provincial Police0 64 Securities Commission0 65 Seniors Issues0 66 Solicitor Gsn. & CorrectionalServices0 67 Supply and Services0 68 Transportation0 69 Travel Inforrretion0 70 Women's DirectorateQ 71 Workers Compensation Board0 72 Other Ministry (please specify)

Manufactures Computers/Data Processing Eqpt.0 75 Computer Distributers, Wholesalers, Manufactures, Reps.0 76 Systems Integrator/VAR/Consultant

Ihrith which of ths followingpurchase decisions will you beinvolved? [check all that apply)0 01 Personal computers0 02 Workstations0 03 Portable computers0 04 Midrangs computers0 05 Mainframe computers0 06 PrintersQ 07 Other peripherals0 08 Network hardware/software0 09 TelecommunicationsQ 10 Operating systems0 11 Application software0 12 Database software0 13 Development tools0 14 Consulting services

For afriee uae only $68-266 Ot. I atfiak Ot. oaasa. oatafla. 515 555 Fbaaa: I618I 188-6481 fax: I613I 189-8488 QlleI

4

tr';„

I

Association of Banyan Users of Canada (ABUC)Contact: Dan Mahoney (613) 225-7622

Contact: Susan Dalati (613) 957-7570Association for Systems Management

Contact: 1-800-203-3657 ext. 153

I ' I i ' I i I

' a-

ARMA International Inc.

';!i Cognos International Users' Group

Canadian Institute of Geomatics

',f4", Canadian Information and Image Management Society

;,I" Association of Professional Computer Consultants,P.:, Contact: Gaston Goulet (613) 235-6165

Association of Public Sector Information Professionals (DPI)Contact: Messages at (819) 246-0147, Fax at (819) 246-0180

Assoc. of Quality in Software Engineering of Ottawa (AQO)Contact: Yves Gelinas (613) 954-6073

Canadian Advanced Technology Association (CATA)Contact: John Reid (613) 236-6550

Canadian Business Telecommunications Alliance (CBTA)fs Contact: 1-800-668-CBTA

Canadian BASIS User Group (CANBUG)Contact: Jeffrey Shuter (613) 247-1579

Contact: Donald Donahue (905) 842-6067Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS)

Contact: (416) 593-4040 or (613) 823-6714

Contact: Susan Pugh (61 3) 224-9851Canadian Operational Research Society

Contact: Dr. Uma Kumar (613) 788-2600 ext. 4463

Contact: Cindy Thornton (613) 738-1440Data Processing Institute (DPI)

Contact: Bob Burwash (613) 952-3077DECUS (Digital Equipment Computer Users)

Contact: Anne Murakami (416) 218-2127Disaster Recovery Information Exchange Ottawa (DRIE)

Contact: Y.S. Yoong (613) 769-1749

Contact: ECC c/o The Willow Group (613) 237-2324 tpFolio User Group Ottawa-Hull (FUGOH)

Contact: Gerry Leger (613) 990-2755Hewlett Packard Users Group

Contact: Nizar Hammad (613) 738-3175

pc

~%~~3r4>- -'* =- ~ " ~ ~ ~ aeM M AK ~ ~ M e' -.-~.t."-'<~~'~~%tB1@:~~'=~w~~~ ' " .

Info. Resource Management Assoc. of Canada (IRMAC)Contact: Vishwa Surajram (416) 971-9800 or (613) 239-4903

Information System Security Association (ISSA)Contact: Yvonne Jason (613) 566-7017

Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC)Contact: Gaylen Duncan (416) 602-8345

Institute for Certification of Computer ProfessionalsContact: George R. Eggert (312) 299-4227

Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (ICMCO)Contact: Murray Kronick, CMC (61 3) 237-0257

The Institute of Technical Editors (ITE)Contact: ITE Hotline (613) 787-9886

Interleaf User Group (Ottawa)Contact: Michael Rowe (613) 995-9578

International Assodation for Human Resource Information Management ~F"

Contact: Govind Kriplani (613) 244-5300 Local 3332 tfl

Contact: E.T. Taylor (613) 782-2906 ®Contact: IHRIM 1 800 780-6566

National Capital CA-Datacom Users Group

National Capital Informix Users Group

Ottawa Banyan User's Group (OBUG)Contact: Guatam Subra (613) 738-3175

Ottawa CA-IDMS User's GroupContact: Mike Klobouk (613) 782-7509

Ottawa CA-Visual Objects/CA-Clipper Developers Assoc.Contact: Erik Wynn (613) 256-5665

Ottawa Carleton UNIX User's GroupContact: . J. Blackwood (613) 957-9305

Ottawa PowerBuilder Users Group

Ottawa Oracle User GroupContact: Peter Smith (613) 742-0000

Ottawa Outaouais SILVERRUN User GroupContact: Andre Rondeau (819) 685-0363

Ottawa Valley HP Regional Users Group (OVRUG)Contact: Mike Brunet (613) 780-7300

Paradox User Group

Progress National Capital User GroupContact: Ralph Koschade (613) 233-0711

Project Management Institute, Ottawa Valley OutaouaisContact: PMI OVOC c/o The Willow Group (613) 569-6236 g'

SCOAP

Society of Logistics Engineers (SOLE)Contact: Jerry Wagner (613) 228-3124

Society for Technical Communication (STC)Contact: (613) 230-0661 i",

Toronto Help Desk InstituteContact: Satinder Sahota (416) 973-4557

UniForum (Canadian Association of Open Systems Users)Contact: Willi Wahl (613) 798-5555 ext. 5653

Urban and Regional Information Systems Assoc. (URISA)Contact: Sandra Crutcher (416) 396-7750

Records Management Institute (RMI)Contact: Charlie Jahn (613) 947-0662

Contact: Barbara Jones (613) 567-4458 F24",

Contact: Larry Chop (613) 236-8761 ~5'.

' ,r~:

Electronic Commerce Canada

Contact: Carol Hargrave (613) 723-7369 ext. 305 Lt;

rsr t

To have your association or event considered for listing on this page please fax details to (613) 789-6433'aae:'

Internet World Canada 98February 3-6

Metro Toronto Convention Centreinformation at wwwinternet.corn.j~"4';,Zltu . '

. . .ov~~.ii . 4 'a ,

'. ElectronicCommerce Canade: Electronic Service DeliiferllFebruary 11-1 2 I

Ottawa Congress Centre/Ifilcj Information at ww cc ar caa or ca.ll 6t3-237-2324

41january 1998 + G overnment Computer

Governments uphill face sticky issuesby Thomas B. Riley

especially in th e Un i ted States andCanada, shows that the people w.ho usethe Net are very much reflective of ourmodern society. People are using theInternet as a tool to enhance the inter-ests that drive them in their daily andprofessional lives. Many also use it forpolitical activism, to get governmentinformation, or to have services deliv-ered electronically. Evidence is surfacingt hat suggests the In ternet w i l l n o treplace television. Rather, it will evolveas a medium unique unto itself, but notnecessarily create a world alien to theone we currently occupy.

One worry is that, while the Internetis a ubiquitous medium, spanning theglobe and connecting millions of com-puters, it is also an isolating technology.People connect with other people incyberspace but, often as not, it is a soli-tary medium engaged in by an individualsitting alone in f ront o f a t e rminal,removed from the experience of groupinteraction. The dynamics of one-on-oneinteraction in a physical environmentare far different from interaction withfaceless identities. There are benefits tothe latter, such as being exposed to adiversity of cultures around the worldand not tagging the invisible person atthe other end by gender, sex, race or age.But the problem goes deeper and couldresult in serious repercussions for soci-ety if there are millions of people whosecontact with society is mostly throughthe computer. Television has contributedsignificantly to the decline of communi-ty activities and vo lunteer groups,

according to studies conducted in NorthAmerica. The Internet, and the possibleconvergence of the TV and the Internet,could compound this even further.

This phenomenon has raised anxi-eties beyond the early concerns aboutthe divisions in our society leading tothe "information rich" and the "informa-tion poor". While we already know thatwe are evolving a society that wil l bedivided by the degree that one is com-puter literate, there are even deeperconcerns surfacing about the negativesocial impacts for societies.

There has been more information gen-erated in the 1990's than all the informa-tion produced prior to 1990, in the histo-ry of the world. We are literally awashwith information. Yet, this rise in the pro-duction of information has not broughtwith it a concomitant rise in literacy. Infact, studies in the United States andCanada have shown not only increasingilliteracy in the general population but anappalling lack of knowledge at the uni-versity level about historic events, ourpolitical leaders or system of govern-ment. This has educators and thinkersquestioning the wisdom of rushing toput computers into the schools, whenthe answer lies in how the content is pre-sented and organized. Many object to thetheory that a combination of the televi-sion and access to the Internet in schoolswill offer all the information a studentcould possibly need. But will this bringknowledge? Information, presented inpieces and organized to i l lustrate itsmeaning, can then be used to formulate a

ew digital technologieshave become a l mostinvisible in our societyand commonplace intheir u sage, bu t the

social changes that these technologiesare bringing have only begun to surface.New technologies are impacting on thejob market and the way we work.A fewof these shifts can be identified at thispoint in time.

It is becoming evident that culturaldifferences between nations and gov-ernments dr ive no t o n l y t h e l egalapproaches but also the content of thischanging media. Different governments,driven by their own unique legal, cul-tural, economic and political ethic, areattempting, with varying degrees of suc-cess, to control content. While therehave been many arguments posited thatthe dominance of American culture iscreating a n unw a nted u n i f ormityaround the world, there is much evi-dence to suggest that the contrary ishappening. Although the new technolo-gies, especially the Internet, are global innature, regional voices are continuing tobecome stronger. Witness the ethnicconflicts around the world as a manifes-tation of th e desire for maintainingracial or ethnic identity.

For example, recent surveys on thepopulation of the Internet suggest thatthere are now approximately 86 millionpeople using the Internet (NUA Surveys,November 12, 1997).An analysis of thestatistics coming out on t h e d emo-graphics of the Internet worldwide, but

42 Covernment Computer + January 1998

knowledge base. This has been the role of

a good curriculum presented by a goodteacher. The rise of illiteracy itself needsto be addressed by getting to the rootcauses of the illiteracy not, say many edu-cators, by putting more computers intothe classroom. This is not to say that allthese new technologies should not beused to enhance our activities in theworkplace, the schools and the home.Rather, it means that we need to takestock of the meaning of technology andinfuse it w i th the spiri t o f l i fe thathumans bring to technology.

There is a notion abroad in the worldthat these new technologies, by theirmere existence and emergence intosociety, offer answers and bring withthem wisdom, It is only individuals, withforesight, intelligence, imagination andcreativity that bring wisdom.

The Internet is a revolutionary mediumthat has af'forded the opportunity for mil-lions of people to open themselves to arich panoply of information and services.The benefits of the Internet are legion, asanyone who has used it will realize. But it isequally important to understand the issueswhich it is raising for society. We can seethat there is a new political philosophyemerging around the Internet which wecan refer to as ocyberism". Subscribers tothis philosophy passionately believe thatthe Net will find its own way of dealingwith the problems emerging in their par-ticular society. There is no doubt that, fromthis new medium, the politics of cyber-space will take wider and wider hold. Therei s already extensive activism on t heInternet, in which groups and individualstake online actions to lobby all levels ofgovernment, from the local, to state/provin-cial, national and international. The politicsof cyberspace are beginiung to impinge onthe real political world. The questionbecomes to what degree will the youngInternet citizens, the netizens, of todaychange the political world of the future?

What is needed is intelligent debateand discussion about the directions thatwe as a society are taking. Future columnswill attempt to p resent a substantivebackground of fact and analysis, in whichreaders can decide for themselves thefuture impact that emerging technologieswill have on the world. +

Thomas B. Riley is President of RileyInformation Services Inc., international spe-cialists in the creation of public policy oninformation issues.

IHFOOHATIOH TEOHHOIOOT

Neer Rig' is 4iglhContinued from page 30

what you' re doing. By doing so, youc an rest assured tha t y ou r h a r d -ware wil l l ast as long as i t has to ,and do the w ork t hat needs to bedone.

This said, however, he does offer aray of hope for f inancially-challengedmanagers, which is that high end sys-tem prices are rapidly coming down.

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In fact, Kirk notes that they' re cominginto what he calls the 'sweet spot 'price range of $2,500 to $3,000 each."That's the same p r ice 486s weredemanding when they first came out,"he notes.

The bottom line: it makes sense tobuy high-end now, so that what youbuy wil l b e a dequate for years tocome.+

james Careless is a freelance writer basedin Ottawa.

q) us at: t e l : (613) 991-7110 fax: (613) 991-7616

J anuary 1998 + C o vernment Computer 4 3

Hotv to evaluate proposals - part tzvoby Michael Asner

n many organizations, the rea-sons for rejecting a specific pro-posal are straightforward: eitherthe proposal did not satisfy oneor more of the mandatory condi-

tions or the proposal failed to score suf-ficient points to be considered for theaward. There are other reasons whichcan be invoked: the business that sub-mitted the proposal was not responsible-the evaluators judged that there was ahigh risk that the business that submit-ted the proposal could not completethe work on time and witltin budget.

Some jurisdictions do more than pro-vide examples. They define the specificreasons for rejecting a proposal. In stat-ing the formal reasons, the organizationremoves the appearance of arbitraryactions:

The contracting authority may reject abid or proposal which has been receivedprior to the closing time only where:it is not submitted in the required form;• there are s ignificant omissions of

required information;• a bid or p roposal is not s igned as

required in the request for bids orproposals;

• t he required b i d s ecur ity i n t h erequired form is not provided;

• the bid or p roposal has conditionsattached which are not authorized bythe request for bids or proposals;

• the bid or proposal fails to meet oneor more standards specified in therequest for bids or proposals; or

• there is substantial evidence that,pursuant to the evaluation criteriacontained in the request for bids orproposals, a bidder or p r oponent

some reasons:

of the state.

What are the steps in an

Most evaluation processes are similar.The proposals are received, copies areproduced, if required, and the proposals

als or after notice of intent to award but

would be unable to carry out thecontract as specified.

Rejecting all proposalsOccasionally, all proposals are reject-

ed. This obviously should be a arneoccurrence caused by unusual andunanticipated circumstances. The AlaskaProcurement Code 7 contains a list of

After the opening of bids or propos-

before award, all bids or proposals maybe rejected in whole or in part by thechief procurement officer or the headof a purchasing agency issuing the solic-itation. Reasons for rejection include thefollowing:(I) the supplies, services, or construc-

tion being procured are no longerrequired;

(2) ambiguous or otherwise inadequatespecifications were part of the solic-itation;

(3) the solicitation did not provide forconsideration of all factors of signifi-cance to the state;

(4) prices exceed available money andi t would no t b e a ppropriate toadjust quantities to accommodateavailable money;

(5) in open competition, may have beencollusive, or may have been submit-ted in bad faith; or

(6) the award is not in the best interestsissues.

(or sections of the proposals) are dis-tributed to the evaluators.• Receive and distribute proposals to

evaluator s• Satisfy mandatory requirements• Evaluate proposals• Attend demonstrations• Determine score and ranking of each

proposal• Perform cost analysis• Determine overall ranking• Attend demonstrations• Check references• Negotiate contracts• Final selection

The first determination by the pro-ject manager or RFP officer is whetherthe proposal has complied with each ofthe mandatory terms and conditions. Ifit has not, it may be eliminated from fur-ther consideration. In some jur isdic-tions, proposals that do not comply witheach of the mandatory terms and condi-tions stated in the RFP must be elimi-nated from fur ther consideration; inother jurisdictions, they may be elimi-nated at the discretion of the procure-ment officer.

If the organization is handling costas a separate issue, then the cost pro-posal is separated from the technicalproposal. If technical experts are beingused to evaluate certain features, thenthey are given only those sections ofthe proposals which deal with t he i r

The proposals are then evaluated anda score is computed for each of the pre-d efined cr i teria. Proposals may b eraked and only those capable of pro-viding an acceptable solution are evalu-ated further.

evaluation?

44 Covernment Computer + J anuary 1998

More detailed evaluations may incor-porate demonstrations or p resenta-tions, site visits, and reference checks.Once the evaluators have determinedthe best proposal, contract negotiationis started. Failure t o n e gotiate anacceptable contract wi thin a p r ede-fined time is reason to reject a propos-al and consider the next best. In somejurisdictions, "best and f inal offer" isused to permit those few suppliersj udged capable o f sa t i sfying t h erequirements the opportunity to revisetheir original proposal. In this way, defi-ciencies can be corrected and a bettersolution provided.

The main objective of this cumber-some process is to determine the winner,not to rank all the proposals in order.While careful attention must be given tothe top two o r t h ree, it matters lesswhether a given proposal ends up lifth orseventh in ranking. Knowing this, someorganizations only evaluate the most diffi-cult areas of each proposal to see whichsuppliers are to be fully evaluated.

Methods of evaluating the proposalswill differ based on the goods and ser-vices involved, the number of proposals

received, and the complexity of the pro-ject. Some organizations have standard-ized the evaluation process

Definition of a winning proposalWhatever specific criteria a particu-

lar evaluation process may incorporate,most evaluators look for the followingin a proposal:

Clear evidence that the supplier fullyunderstands the requirements.

An approach which appears techni-cally sound, achievable wi thin con-straints explained by the vendor, andoffered in enough detail to provide evi-dence of these characteristics.

Clear evidence that the supplier candeliver the expected results by mobiliz-ing qualified staff, capable management,and an experienced organization. +

Michael Asner provides consulting helpand offers workshops to government on cre-ating effective RFPs, and to IT firms on writ-ing winning proposals. His latest book, theRequest for Proposal Handbook, is distributedby the Covernment Computer Bookstore(613-789-643 1). He can be reached at 604-530-7881 or by email at a snerlcom-puserve. corn.

l I I

as" <~eg+o+". - +Cogee O et'

The Ottrzisia Chapter of the

is holding it's monthly meeting onThursday, January 15, 1998 at the

Ottawa Congress Centre.

Canadian Informat ion Processing Society

If you arelooking for agreat sourcefor all yourAutoCAD-related ~requirements,look no further!Automated DesignSystems has 8 ofrtcesacross Ontario, staffedwith people who knowAutoCAD inside andout.

We offer a wide rangeof training courses, &bonus utilities,advanced programming ~services, andtechnically qualifiedsales reps.The theme "IT Skills Shortage" will feature presentations by leading

authorities in Education, Government and Industry from the NationalCapital Region. Issues relating to the next century will be discussedfrom various viewpoints.

The backdrop to this unique evening is the Annual Student ITBanquet which affords a blend of the realism of todays curriculuumand the requirements of Industry and Government in the future.There will be an opportunity to meet with the students from areaColleges and Universities from 4:30 until 5:30.

Registration will be at 5:30 and dinner will be served at 6. The Pane1begins at 7. This will be a lively and very timely event.

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+ Government Computer 45January 1998

The case of the missing stra tegyby Charles Belford

appy New Year! You havethree minutes to find thememo d e t a i l ing thedepartment's roll-up ofI T r e q u i rements fo r

FY98/99 before meeting with the ADM,Finance and Admin to discuss IT alloca-tion. You' ve already fallen behind in theplanning cycle and now you' ve got todecide how to spend five million of thedepartment's capital budget on IT.

There's a wee problem, however. Thememo on IT r e quirements identifiesonly the software and hardware require-ments of the department and these totalover 12 million. But that's not the prob-lem. Well, it's not the most critical prob-lem. That problem has to do with infor-mation mana gement st ra t egies.Specifically, the problem has to do withthe absence of such strategies in your ITplan. Uh-huh, that problem.

The good news is that the ADMwouldn't know an IT or an IM strategy ifthey fell on her head. She's just worriedabout the money. And because the

department doesn't tie IT allocation toprogram development strategies (muchless an IT strategy), the money thing iseasy.Who do you love? Who got a lot lastyear? Is the Minister's office OK? Who' swhining especially loudly these days?

Hey, you' ve got an allocation strategy,right? It might not be as business-basedas you'd like, but neither is the depart-ment's planning.

Your problem is that foolish crisis ofconscience you had last summer after acouple of directors mentioned that theyneeded to expand IT planning aroundtheir requirements to cover more than"stuff."They needed stuff, of course. Butthey needed more from you. They didn' tknow how to articulate their additionalrequirements all that clearly. One direc-tor wanted to know how to better usetheir Internet connections to servicetheir NGO community. Another wantedto create a database to support somecross-functional prospects between hisdivision and two others.A third one wasd reaming of some on-line tools t oupgrade their division's value-added buthad no idea what this would require.

Well, what happened? You provided asympathetic ear and said you'd look intoit. Sure.

Trouble is, you don't have anyone tosend up to talk to them. Secondly, thedepartment's focus is on cost-savingsand this stuff on i t s f ace i s aboutenhanced service. Finally, IT's role in thedepartmental planning process is quickand dirty. Here's your capital budget.

Where's your list of "stuff? "The idea thatthe management committee m ightreject IT's plan as insufficient is prepos-terous. They' ve never asked about thedepartment's IT strategy, much less anIM strategy, and they aren't likely to askthis year either. They think IT is about"stuff" so why u pset the applecart,right?

And so it goes. IT planning plays intomanagement's level of IT maturity andthe department's planning assumptionsabout business and IT. IT managersrightly point out that you can't create amature IT plan in a departmental plan-ning process that is not business4riven.If the department is incapable of identi-fying discrete program delivery strate-gies and operational plans to realizethem, how can you develop an IT or anIM strategy? Fact is, you can' t.

Where a department only pays lipservice to "Doing more with less." Thedirty little secret isn't that IT planning issuboptimal. The dirty little secret is thatbusiness planning is suboptimal andthat, as a result, so is IT/IM planning. ®

Charles Belford, formerly a senior execu-tive in the federal public service, is presidentof Network Environment Associates. He canbe reached by telephone at (613) 828-1775or by e-mail at [email protected].

Visit acs on the WebI I I I

%caus • Revielos • Edi tor ia ls • E v ents

46 Government Computer + J anuary 1998

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1998 01 Government Computer